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Ah, a brand new year of baking is upon us with all of its possibilities.
On Monday, I made Easy Buckwheat-Oat English Muffins on the wood stove, which I have discussed in another thread. On Wednesday evening, I baked cornbread to go with leftover soup. On Thursday, I baked a loaf of my Buttermilk Grape Nuts Bread (recipe on this site).
On Friday evening, I mixed up the dough for Rye Crisps, a cracker recipe from The Baking Sheet, 13.1 (Holiday 2001)-- a new recipe, thus keeping the New Year's resolution to try a new recipe every week or every other week. It's a yeast cracker that also uses baking powder--and since I substituted in some buttermilk for water, I added some baking soda. It mixes for 5 minutes in the bread machine (until it makes a cohesive dough), then rises for an hour, and then is refrigerated for several hours or up to 24 hours. I baked them on Saturday afternoon, and I really like them with their shiny egg wash. I would, however, divide the dough in half, and only bake one half at a time, as dough rolls out to cover my largest baking sheet completely, and the crackers on the edges got a little browner than I would have liked, even though the taste is excellent. They are also great with cheese as well.
When my husband came in from outside, somehow the smell from the rye crackers reminded him of chocolate cake, and he said wistfully, "Now, I want some chocolate cake." There did seem to be a faint chocolate smell from the crackers. So, I made the KAF Deep Dark Brownies (using a 10-inch ceramic baking dish). I will finish this evening by baking another batch of shortbread.
The wood stove is cast iron, so it gets hot. I would only use cast iron pans or griddles on it. Other metals would likely melt. The Le Creuset and Staub ones that I use have the enamel on iron. Our stove is designed primarily for heating the house, although it also creates a nice atmosphere. An Amish woman, the sister of the owner at the store where we bought it, told me that the top would be suitable for heating a pot of soup and other such kinds of cooking. If I had an iron kettle, I could probably boil water for tea. One of these days, I will try it for flatbreads and pancakes.
I have seen Lodge rectangular cast iron griddles at T.J. Maxx on occasion. Possibly that would work over Aaron's two burners on a gas stove. I think that the cookie sheets would warp.
I'm sure the stove that Italian Cook remembers was a real cast iron kitchen wood stove--probably with an oven as well.
A friend who bought an old house here found a wood stove in the basement that was designed to heat up water for doing laundry!
With our stove, my husband is still learning about how different woods burn. (Yes, he can tell by looking at it the kind of tree from which it comes. I'm trying to learn that.) Some give a fast fire, like pine, which is good for starting the fire, while oak and ash create a steadier fire.
I don't have a wood stove, but your post brings back happy childhood memories. My dad, beloved stepmother & I would visit stepmom's relatives in the back woods. Or, at least they seemed like back woods to me at the time, because the woman of the house cooked on a wood stove.
I'd sit at the kitchen table watching the woman cook on the stove. Occasionally, I'd have the fun of seeing her put wood in the stove. The kitchen was always burning hot. I felt uncomfortable from the heat, but I was fascinated by what she was doing and wouldn't leave.
She cooked scrumptious biscuits (no gravy), eggs and bacon on the stove. She cooked for a crowd. We ate breakfast in the dining room at a long table. In addition to my family, there were the parents and kids who lived in the house, and a few farmhands. Every bite the crowd ate came from that wood stove.
Thanks, BakerAunt, for making me think of this.
Topic: Aquafaba anyone?
Hi,
Some friends of ours with dairy and egg allergies were extoling the virtues of aquafaba to us this weekend. I was wondering if any of the folks here have used it? They made meringue cookies with it. You can find general information here and some recipes here.
My wife opened a can of chickpeas last night and did not save the liquid so I'll have to wait until next time (which should be some day this week) before I can get some. I guess I could use black bean juice but it is not as neutral as chickpeas.
Thanks
You may have noticed that I posted a thread from the Baking Circle from last year. I'd kept it to record how I had made English Muffins on top of a wood stove. At the time it was an experiment, and I was not sure that I was going to repeat it. On New Year's Day, I began craving those English Muffins, so I found the thread, read it, and decided to post it as a prequel to trying it again.
Tonight, I made the Easy Buckwheat-Oat English Muffins (recipe on this site). I substituted in 1 1/2 cups buttermilk for that much water. I also added 1 Tbs. ground flax meal. I found that the recipe needed 2 Tbs. more of bread flour (as I noted to myself when I've made it twice before). It is a wet dough. I cooked these on a Le Creuset cast iron griddle on a Le Creuset cast iron rack on top of the lower deck of our wood stove. The rack helped with the temperature issue I had when I tried this last year. I also turned the griddle pan around halfway through the baking time on each side. My biggest issue is figuring out how to keep the fire at the right level so that it produces the temperature needed to bake these in three batches. The heat began to drop as the first batch was finishing, and I was getting ready to start the second. I needed to add wood a little earlier, as it took a bit to heat up again. A second concern is keeping the unbaked muffins from rising and deflating while waiting for the ones on the griddle to cook. To deal with that, I divided the 12 into three sets of four, and put each set in a separate container to rise. I left the containers in the coolest part of the house until I was ready to bake that batch. Still, the third batch was flatter. I may try refrigerating the batches until I'm ready for them.
I'm developing a great respect for our foremothers and forefathers who cooked regularly on wood stoves.
Note: Thread originally appeared on Baking Circle on January 6, 2016.
English Muffins on Top of a Wood Stove
We are in Indiana, where we have a wood stove with an upper and a lower deck. It has been my dream since last year to try cooking English Muffins on it. I am in the middle of the experiment, using a Le Creuset rectangular grill pan. My infrared thermometer is also getting a workout. The hard thing is to keep the temperature at around 300F. The upper deck is not hot enough, and the lower deck is too hot. I have been switching the pan between the two of them. I think it is sort of working. I have done four, and with 15 minutes on each side, it took a while to get to 180F (instant read thermometer). This time I did three, and I am about to turn them. (This is going to be a long night, as I have five to go.) The recipe is the Easy Buckwheat Oat English Muffins that is in members' recipes. I will report back tomorrow on how this experiment turns out, after we have breakfast.
posted by: bakeraunt on January 06, 2016 at 12:40 am in General discussions
reply by: bakeraunt on January 06, 2016 at 9:42 am
Here is the promised follow-up. English muffins can be cooked on the deck of a wood burning stove, but it is hard to modulate temperature. Toward the end, as the fire burned down, I was having trouble keeping enough heat on the lower deck, and I added a piece of wood. I should have pre-heated the griddle for longer than I did before I started. Moving back and forth between the upper and lower decks seemed to work well. I may try this again at some point, but not this trip, as there isn't time.
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The texture is pretty good. Although the holes are not as large as on some commercial muffins, they do have some cragginess. Since it takes 30 minutes to cook each batch, subsequent batches are more spread out and did not rise quite as high as the first batch. That would be an issue on a conventional stove as well, so maybe part of the answer is more griddle surface. Next time, I will try to keep the non-cooked ones cooler so that the rise is slower and they do not sink down and spread before I can get them on the griddle. They still puffed up when put on the griddle, just not as high as the first batch.
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The taste is excellent. We are both buckwheat fans., I made the recipe as given, except that I substituted in 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk for the water, and I used active yeast, which I proofed in the remaining 1/4 cup of water. I used the lesser amount of salt. I mixed it in the bread machine on the dough cycle. I let it rise in a separate greased bowl and found that the dough only needed an hour to rise. I used farina (cream of wheat) to dust them and the griddle. They toasted well. My husband--a Philistine who NEVER splits and toasts an English muffin but just eats them as they are with margarine, and often jam or honey--also liked them. I, of course, split mine with a fork (the English muffin splitter is back in Texas), toasted it, and slathered it with Land of Lakes butter/canola light blend. Ah, so good with coffee! It is too bad that I do not have any of my homemade jam here.
reply by: skeptic7 on January 06, 2016 at 11:41 am
Congratulations on a success. Do you have the English Muffins covered to keep the heat in when you cook them? I've always baked my English Muffins, not cooked them on a griddle so I was wondering. I saw pictures of baking in a Dutch Oven on a campfire and that was always covered.
reply by: bakeraunt on January 06, 2016 at 1:14 pm
Thanks. Sometimes it is fun to branch out. I have never done English muffins in the oven, although I know sometimes people finish them in the oven if the center is still not baked and the muffins are overbrowning on the outsides. I also have never covered them I usually use a griddle pan, so the cover would not really work. I have used a large Calphalon griddle at home on my gas stove with mixed results. I will try that again, now that I have an infrared thermometer to monitor surface temperature. I have a smaller (10-inches, I think) cast iron pan that I have used for making bread wraps with great success, and I might try it for English muffins on the regular stove as well. Both of those are in the Texas kitchen right now..
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This oven is not designed for putting a pot inside. Its main function is heating the house, but we were told when we bought it that it could be used for soups, etc. I like to make soup by putting a Le Creuset Dutch oven on the upper level. At some point I will try flat breads, and also pancakes.
reply by: KIDPIZZA on January 06, 2016 at 4:52 pmBAKERAUNT:
Good afternoon my friend. Marliss thank you I received your note.
.
~CASS.
reply by: frick on January 06, 2016 at 8:42 pm
I've only made English muffins a few times but each time they were made on an electric griddle. That's the best way of maintaining a fairly consistent temp, though it does fluctuate. They did get done in the middle without burning or resorting to the oven. And since it's fairly large, several could be made at once, but not all of them. They did puff up a little thicker than ideal, and got smaller in diameter. I can't remember what recipe I used, but would go with a looser batter next time so I don't get 'English balls'.
reply by: bakeraunt on January 08, 2016 at 11:56 pm In case anyone wants to try these, here is the link to the recipe:
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Note: I've removed the old address, as it is no longer valid. You can find the recipe here at Nebraska Kitchen if you search for "by suetheviewfrom" or by the recipe name.
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This person only posted this one recipe on the KAF Baking Circle--no other interaction on the forum. I am glad that she put it on. She has a blog, which looks interesting.On Tuesday, I baked the Our Favorite Sticky Buns from the KAF site. I've discussed it in another thread. On Thursday, I baked Sandwich Rye Bread--a recipe that appeared a long time ago in the King Arthur catalogue. This time, I substituted First Clear Flour for the AP flour, and I used all medium rye flour (usually I mix medium and dark rye, but medium is all I have). I substituted in a cup of buttermilk for one cup of the water. The bread machine (stand mixer is back in Texas) did a fine job of kneading this 5-cups of flours bread. I usually bake it in a "hearth pan" that KAF used to sell, and was selling again, but that pan is back in Texas, so I used a 10x5 loaf pan. The bread came out very well and makes delicious turkey sandwiches.
On Saturday, I made the Buttermilk Cracker Recipe from the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary cookbook that I tried this summer. This time, I experimented with 1/4 cup malted wheat flakes, 1/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats, and 1/4 cup barley flakes for the whole grains, and I added 2 Tbs. of flax meal. I needed an extra 2 Tbs. of buttermilk to get the dough to come together, and I probably should have used more. The dough were difficult to roll out; looking back, I should have added more buttermilk, as the air was dry inside. I also made a blueberry pie, and I had the same problem with the crust as I had with the crackers. The filling for the pie was from what I canned this summer. Some of you may recall. from what I posted then, that the Dutch Jel from an Amish store that I used, which was advertised as the same as ClearJel, was actually pectin, and it had made a soupy pie. I took Cass's advice from this summer, and I put a quart and a pint jar of filling in a pan, and I cooked and stirred--45 minutes!--until I had reduced the liquid. I then had to cool it, and I baked my pie. I'll report on how it turns out.Pie Report: The pie baked up nicely. The filling is like jam, which is not surprising, since it was made with pectin.
I buy Breitsamer honey--a German brand that is carried at T.J. Maxx, Tuesday Morning, and Big Lots. Of course, they do not always have it all the time. We like their Golden Selection, and the Rapsblute Honey (rapeseed flowers) honey is my husband's particular favorite. The Acacia honey is very light, so it is good when you do not want too much honey flavor. My husband asked me not to buy the Forest Honey (too strong) or even the Meadow Flower honey.
I like to buy local honey when I can. That is harder to do in my part of Texas, hence resorting to the stores mentioned. In Indiana, there is a couple who have honey production and come to the local Farmer's Market in the summer. We liked theirs enough that I bought the biggest jar of it that I could before we left last summer. (Yes, it was gone within a month.) I've also bought blueberry flower honey at the local blueberry place, that was from Michigan. A friend gave us some Buckwheat Honey. I've not tried it yet.
My husband goes through honey fast. He likes it on pancakes and waffles, and he likes it on the oatmeal he eats almost every morning. I like baking with it, since as Cass has told us, using some keeps our baked goods fresher longer.
